Ranma 1. Take this Waltz

Take this Waltz this Leonard Cohen song paints a picture in your mind of this beautiful yet terrible place he describes. It's not heaven... it's not hell, it's just beauty mixed with sadness.

I have taken that theme and took a night of celebration and showed the misunderstanding and loneliness that could occur amongst the driven Nerima Wrecking Crew.

I hope that you like it.

Sid

**TAKE THIS WALTZ Lyrics**  
Artist(Band):**Leonard Cohen**

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women  
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry  
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows  
There's a tree where the doves go to die  
There's a piece that was torn from the morning  
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost  
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay  
Take this waltz, take this waltz  
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Ryoga looked at the invitation in his hand for Ukyou's New Years party and could only feel frustrated to find out he was in Okinawa! Tonight was supposed to be the night that he told Akane that he loved her and they shared their first kiss. Out of sheer annoyance he stopped at the nearest bar and ordered a sake, one of many that night. All he could think about was his sweet Akane kissing Ranma at the stroke of midnight. In his mind it would be the sweetest kiss that she would ever receive and this would cause her to fall for the pigtailed marital artist. They would marry and have children of dubious sexes together. He could see her face so close to him that he felt like he could lean over the take her sweet lips for his own. If this were possible, she would fall in love with him instead and become Mrs. Hibiki! They would love each other so much and their children would have her soft doe brown eyes. He was a tad tipsy and heaved a sad sigh at this lost opportunity.

"Are you okay?" a soft voice asked.

"I'm fine" he answered, he glanced up to find a pretty girl with long brown hair standing by his table. She seemed to be in cheerful disguise because even though she wore a festive red dress, her eyes were sad.

"It is about a girl?" she asked.

"Isn't it always" he said with a sigh.

"Not if it's about a boy" she said sadly. Seeing that she seemed to be alone, he invited her to join him. After a few drinks they exchanged sad tales of love gone undiscovered, as only lonely strangers can do. The atmosphere of the bar was festive and the satellite TV was tuned to the famous apple dropping in Times Square, but their table might have been better situated at a funeral as they both mourned what never was. Finally she stood up just as the countdown began by the drunken revelers. "My head's spinning, I should get home" she said.

"Thanks for talking to me Rika" Ryoga said with a grin.

Just as the apple touched the ground, the bar exploded in a flurry of frantic hugs and kisses, Rika leaned over and gave Ryoga a kiss on the cheek. "Nice talking to you to, I hope it works out for you and Akane" she said and ghosted out as if she had never been there.

He watched her leave and felt like the only creature alone on the planet that night. He conjured Akane's smiling face to his mind again and whispered "I hope so too"

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you  
On a chair with a dead magazine  
In the cave at the tip of the lily  
In some hallways where love's never been  
On a bed where the moon has been sweating  
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand  
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay  
Take this waltz, take this waltz  
Take its broken waist in your hand

Mousse lay back on his futon as tears leaked from his eyes. He'd been invited to Ukyou's party to. Cologne had forbidden him to go as she had developed a sort of perfume to help Shampoo snag Ranma and didn't wish him to be there to ruin things as usual. So he was alone on one of the most romantic days of the year with only a bottle of whiskey for company.

He didn't understand why Shampoo couldn't love him; plenty of girls had approached him romantically in the past. They didn't care that his eyes couldn't see as long as they were beautiful, his features pleasing, his body well developed and his mannerisms and personality endearingly sweet. Yet Shampoo was immune to all he had to offer...and she was the one he wanted. He'd saved up every dime from when he used to be in the circus to have a nest egg for them. He'd only spent a part of it building a hut with his bare hands for them on a piece of land that she loved on his mother's farm. His love, his devotion, his chastity, all of it was hers...and she wanted another.

He pictured her in the beautiful fuchsia dress she'd worn to the party; she was being held and kissed by Ranma. He felt his heart lurch, he sat up and took another slung of whiskey; he shuddered at the taste and wiped away a stray tear. He was all alone; he always seemed to be alone. He had tried to argue with Cologne that they were his friends too, as much as the Amazons could be friends with the strange people they had met in Nerima. She had told him to go to the Chinese community center and listen to girls singing traditional Mandarin songs. But he didn't want to do this, he wanted to be with Shampoo and hope that he would be the one to kiss her at midnight. He wanted to be surrounded by cheerful people who could put aside their differences for one night and celebrate the New Year. He wanted cheer, he wanted drunken midnight hugs that girls offered friends...he just wanted to feel accepted for once. He now felt like Cinderella being excluded from the ball.

He laughed bitterly when he thought about the secret that Ranma didn't know. Cologne had ordered Mousse to prepare Shampoo for marriage by sleeping with her to improve her skills in how to please her husband. Unmarried Amazon males were often used for this; it was considered to be an honour to be chosen. An honour that they dare not refuse, this insulted the girl. He'd hoped that this intimacy with Shampoo would force her hand and had done so eagerly. It hadn't worked, now she came to him out of sexual frustration for Ranma. They slept together every night, so he'd become her sex slave when he wanted her heart.

Mousse picked up his bottle and weaved drunkenly onto their balcony, he stood still when he spotted their neighbours on their's. Cologne hated them; they lived in an apartment a little bigger then Mousse's room. They were young, poor and loud as they would often have their friends over to party long into the night. She referred to them as trash and frequently called in noise complaints. Yet tonight they were alone and dressed up. The woman wore a dress that probably was the height of fashion in 1982 and embarrassingly enough, probably a bridesmaid's dress that a woman used to torture her friends with. The male wore a wrinkled suit that had seen better days. Yet they held each other sweetly and kissed at midnight while all of Nerima went wild. They were tawdry and cheap but they had the one thing that Mousse could never seem to achieve; love, it was apparent in the way they looked at each other. This made him sad.

The girl noticed him standing there and said "Happy New Years" in a drunken, happy voice; she stumbled and giggled when her mate caught her. She blew a kiss at Mousse and went back inside when her boyfriend scooped her up to continue celebrating their love in private. Mousse raised his bottle to their departure and drank to his own sorrow and loneliness, the taste was bitter and it was no longer just the alcohol...

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz  
With its very own breath of brandy and Death  
Dragging its tail in the sea

Nabiki stood outside the cloak room of Ukyou's restaurant selling Ranma's New Years kisses to his fiancées. Ranma had gone along with it only because she had threatened to tell Akane that he had gone on a date with Ukyou, it didn't matter that Ukyou had blackmailed him into this too. He was frustrated and drank sake as he kissed women that he didn't really care for as they press their firm, young bodies against his in a way that they hoped appealed to him. All of his fiancées were full breasted, save one and they thought he liked a healthy chest. It wasn't true; he liked petite girls with smaller, perky breasts, who still had curves...like Akane. She was the girl he liked, but she seemed to think that he was the biggest pervert on the planet. It wasn't his fault that girls were attracted to him and his father an enterprising douche. When he was caught in suggestive situations, it was never because he wanted to be there in the first place. He dreamed of a peaceful future free of grabbing hands and having breasts thrust into his face every two seconds, he just wanted the dojo and one love...Akane. He glared at Nabiki for forcing him into the situation and sent her for more sake...it was the only thing he could make her do.

He tried not to cringe in revulsion as Shampoo's tongue snaked into his mouth. Her behaviour had gotten even more suggestive lately and he didn't like it. She'd squashed herself against him so that dime couldn't have slipped between them. She wore some sort of cloying perfume that made him feel ill and she massaged his tonsils in a way that made him want to retch. Finally she leaned back and said "We date now airen?"

Ranma angrily wiped his mouth and said "I'll think about it"

"Hiya, so happy I kiss airen" she said and left.

Ranma sighed in frustration when Ukyou, his cute fiancée came in to take her place. He gnashed his teeth in frustration that Nabiki had turned him into a kissing whore.

There's a concert hall in Vienna  
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews  
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking  
They've been sentenced to death by the blues  
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture  
With a garland of freshly cut tears?  
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay  
Take this waltz, take this waltz  
Take this waltz it's been dying for years

From where Nabiki stood she could see the man she liked, Kuno flirt with her sister. Akane looked annoyed by this, but Nabiki was still envious of the attention. Akane seemed to be looking for Ranma, but Nabiki wouldn't tell her where he was until she had received her money for his kisses.

Nabiki was surrounded by happy people, but stood apart from them. No boy had asked her to dance or to fetch her some punch, this bothered her a little. Yes she loved an opportunity to plump up her bank account, but wanted to join the party. She'd been sipping the sake that she'd brought to Ranma and was a little tipsy.

She longed for Kuno to come over to where she was and ask her for a midnight kiss, but knew that that wasn't going to happen. She dreamed of his larger body pressed against her own, how his full lips would feel as they curled into their kiss, how soft his thick hair would feel under her fingers and of the scent of his expensive aftershave. From where she stood, she watched him hand Akane a bouquet of roses. She longed for her own arms to hold them while she smiled up at him, but had never received even a single blossom...from anyone. She'd secretly pressed a rose he'd given Akane in her diary, she'd take it off the floor after a fight. She kept her diary in a bank vault that no one knew about...her heart she kept there too. In it she wrote secrets that she would never admit to anyone in her need to keep up appearances.

Ranma emerged glaring daggers at her while he wiped lipstick from his mouth. "Satisfied?" he asked bitterly. He left the party without a goodbye to anyone, he felt too soiled to face Akane.

Nabiki watched Kuno out of the corner of her eye as he tried to fasten around Akane's neck the diamond necklace that he'd bought her for Christmas. She kept on resisting him and eventually left the party in a huff.

"Of course I am, I got paid" Nabiki said in a false, happy tone. She took the almost full glass of sake that Ranma had left and drank it all in one gulp.

There's an attic where children are playing  
Where I've got to lie down with you soon  
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns  
In the mist of some sweet afternoon  
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow  
All your sheep and your lilies of snow  
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay  
Take this waltz, take this waltz  
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

Akane weaved drunkenly through the streets while jubilant strangers hugged each other out of sheer happiness of the bright New Year and the euphoria that it brought. Akane had been similarly hugged and had allowed them from girls and spurned them from guys. There was only one man who she wanted touching her and he had disappeared and left her alone at the party to be molested by Kuno. He'd probably run off with his cute fiancée, Ukyou Akane reasoned. She didn't understand it; Ranma had asked her to go with him. Well actually he'd said, "a party? You want ta go Akane?" So technically he hadn't asked her go with him _exactly_, but it was the principle of the matter. He had kinda asked her and had even been a good date by escorting her there and making sure that she had enough to eat and drink and didn't lack for pleasant conversation. Then he disappeared and left her there!

Akane was in love and didn't know how to tell him. She thought that they had grown closer in their time together, but apparently not. All he had to see was the pretty faces of his other fiancées and he was gone. Was it that they were more developed then Akane? Akane felt herself a little...small in the bosom department compared to the others. Okay she was a tomboy, but she certainly didn't dress like one. Her clothes were actually quite feminine. She let out a bitter laugh that she was the most sought after girl in school and yet she couldn't attract the attention of the one she wanted. She tried to imagine Ukyou and Ranma finding a quiet place and celebrating their love, this made her feel ill. She knew that the only reason why Ukyou hosted the party was to flaunt her cooking skills and put Akane's to shame.

Akane's imagination took a hold of her and she pictured them kissing, she bolted for an alleyway and threw up in a garbage can. "Are you okay?" a young woman in a green dress asked her worriedly, beside her stood her companion.

"I don't know if I will ever be okay again" Akane said mournfully and allowed the nice people to see her home.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ...

Ukyou freshened herself up in the washroom after she'd kissed Ranma. Kissing him had been everything she'd ever dreamed of and more! She touched her lips and remembered how his had felt like silk as he'd held her body tightly against his more powerful frame. This had sent shivers up and down her spine. Her first kiss!

She frowned that he hadn't seemed as happy about it as her, in fact he'd seemed...machine-like, as if he was only going through the motions. He'd thrust her from him as soon as it was over, as if repulsed by her and had left before she had exited the cloak room. He'd left in a huff!

Ukyou shook her head to clear it of the negative thoughts. Of course he'd enjoyed kissing her, hadn't he always said that she was the cute fiancée? Ranma loved her and she shouldn't question that, he merely had a problem expressing his emotions and no wonder with his weird family. He would learn to open up once they were married and running their restaurant. He would be a great husband...'and father' she thought with a blush.

She knew that she was going to make a great wife. Hadn't she shown him that with this party? Everyone was having a wonderful time and the sake and champagne she'd supplied were flowing like water, she had indulged a bit herself and was tipsy. Everywhere she looked were happy couples having fun. Yet she couldn't see Ranma or Akane. Had they left together?

Something niggled at her brain. She'd noticed that they had seemed to be getting closer and acting more like a couple lately. Before they had bickered like a pair of school yard six-year-olds, that being at the time when a guy showed he liked a girl by picking on her. Why the other day she was sure that she'd interrupted them about to kiss. She would watch them giggling together while walking home. She would see them eat lunch together under a tree, they looked...so cozy. So cozy that she'd joined them without permission; Ranma had looked annoyed by this. Even tonight he'd been fawning over Akane until Nabiki had cornered him. 'Did they like each other?' she wondered and then shook her head to clear it. Then there was the fact the Ranma showed more interest in running a dojo then a restaurant and Akane's family owned a dojo...

'Nah Akane with her small breasts, short stature and clumsy ways had nothing on the tall graceful her' she thought and went to rejoin her party. Ukyou was the cute fiancée after all.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna  
I'll be wearing a river's disguise  
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,  
My mouth on the dew of your thighs  
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,  
With the photographs there, and the moths  
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty  
My cheap violin and my cross  
And you'll carry me down on your dancing  
To the pools that you lift on your wrist  
Oh my love, Oh my love  
Take this waltz, take this waltz  
It's yours now. It's all that there is.

Kuno stared at the diamond necklace in his hand, it'd been expensive but he hadn't cared. He had more then enough money to spoil the woman he loved. Everyone he'd talked to had suggested to him that girls loved diamonds and they make an excellent gift. That would include; his house ninja, his upstairs maid, his downstairs maid, his head housekeeper, his chauffeur, his chef, his hairdresser etc. All of them had assured him that no girl could resist diamonds. After all didn't the song go 'diamonds are a girl's best friend'? So he'd bought her a diamond necklace; even he knew she would never accept a ring.

He'd presented it to her in a black velvet box, her jaw had dropped when the perfectly cut gem sparkled at her from the dark interior. She had thanked him politely but had handed it back. He'd gotten rather insistent, assuring her that he could afford it and it was merely a token to her beauty. She'd had pushed his hand holding the box back towards him and had gotten more forceful with her objections. Finally he had tried to place it around her neck, that's when her famous foot met his head and the world went black. He woke up with Akane gone and the box still in his hand.

He sighed, here he was almost eighteen and not only still a virgin, but never had kissed a girl. Everyone in his mansion, save his sister, said he was an excellent catch. So where were his dates, his romances, heck even a girl who would do her homework with him?

Undecided what to do, he felt it was time to leave. He'd drank a fair bit of champagne and felt kind of dizzy as result. Besides he didn't want to be amongst the happy couples as they kissed at midnight. After thanking Ukyou politely, he turned to leave, but not before he spotted Nabiki standing close to the door. He thrust the rejected necklace into her hands and said cruelly, "here, a materialist bitch like you will appreciate this" as his normal politeness had been altered by his drunkenness.

Nabiki watched him leave and then opened the box; he didn't see her tender smile as she looked at the beautiful necklace. She knew that he'd bought it for Akane, but didn't care as he'd given it to her. He would have been shocked to learn that it wasn't the value of the necklace that she appreciated, but that it was a gift from him.


	2. The Future

The Future by Leonard Cohen, this song is about corruption of the world, these are the images that I saw when it comes to the NWC when I play this song. It's one of the most powerful songs that he has ever written, and perhaps the most violent one. I have the cover art of this CD tattooed on my left shoulder blade. Warning this is very graphic.

Give me back my broken night  
my mirrored room, my secret life  
it's lonely here,  
there's no one left to torture  
Give me absolute control  
over every other living soul  
And lie beside me, baby,  
that's an order!

Akane stood at the end of the aisle hidden from view of all of her guests wearing her pristine white wedding gown. She looked like an angel in the simply cut strapless gown, with a fingertip length veil that framed her pretty face. A small, glittering tiara held this back. She looked like a vision of unspoiled innocence, but a small smirk graced her heavenly countenance. She was soiled inside as she had had to blackmail a blackmailer in order to make this wedding happened.

She'd found Ranma at home after she'd left the party and lit into him, in her drunken state she told him everything in her heart and how hurt she'd been by his disappearance. He'd told her that he felt the same and admitted what Nabiki had forced him to do. He went on to tell her about the date that Ukyou had obtained from him using the same method. He'd expected her to yell at him and call him a pervert, but instead she'd just gotten mad at the pair of them and said that revenge was needed. Blackmail, swindle, cheat and lies; that's what Akane had done it. You can't live with Nabiki Tendo and not learn a trick or two. Akane lost her innocence that night and the now Nabiki-like Akane was born.

One by one she'd found out about the dirty little secrets that her competition didn't want known and eliminated them by threatening to tell. That Ukyou was sleeping with Konatsu. About Shampoo and Mousse. That Kodachi had a fetish for being spanked by her pool boy. The corrupt Akane was ruthless and worse then Nabiki ever had been with them. She didn't want money, but merely for them to back off until she and Ranma were left alone to pursue their relationship. It had blossomed until she had told him to marry her and that had led to this. She smirked at Ranma's former fiancées; she'd not only made them leave Ranma alone, but had made them serve as her bridesmaids. The innocent Akane was dead; long live the new boss.

Nabiki she hadn't let get off scot free, in fact she'd discovered about her bank deposit box. Akane had gone in disguised as Nabiki with a wig on and her sister's borrowed id and read her diary. She'd laughed to discover of her longing for Kuno. She'd confronted her sister with her discovery and had made her not only give back the money that she'd taken from Kuno for photos of Ranma and herself, but had made her beg to serve him as a maid. That had led to her downfall…

The music started and the defeated train of women started forward with false, cheery smiles pasted on their faces

Give me crack and anal sex  
Take the only tree that's left  
stuff it up the hole  
in your culture  
Give me back the Berlin wall  
give me Stalin and St Paul  
I've seen the future, brother:  
it is murder.

Kuno laid the diamond bracelet on the nightstand beside Nabiki's side of the bed. It matched the necklace around her neck, the earrings in her ears and the other bracelet; Nabiki liked to make love in her diamonds. She'd surprised him by returning his money and humbly begging for him to give her a job as a maid, he'd been stunned but had agreed. When she had donned the dove gray uniform with its white apron, he'd noticed how lovely her figure was, not that it was like a French maid uniform or anything. It just hugged her tiny waist, showed off the slenderness of her hips and drew attention to her long legs. Kuno was used to thinking of his staff as friends and had gotten closer to the normally smug girl. One day he'd pounced on her while she made his bed. He hadn't forced her, she'd been just as eager as they made frantic love together and both had lost their virginities that day. She'd become his lover. When her father had found out about what was going on, he'd thrown her out of the house and into Kuno's bed permanently. Now Kuno was getting laid on a regular basis and all he had to do was pay and pay…

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions  
Won't be nothing  
Nothing you can measure anymore  
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world  
has crossed the threshold  
and it has overturned  
the order of the soul  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant.

Nabiki yawned and woke up, she smirked at the latest trinket that her boyfriend had left her. When she'd had sex with Kuno, she'd discovered that her so-called love for him was just lust that had been more or less satisfied. Not that she didn't like him, he had a pleasing manner and a hot body that she loved to hold against her own while he pounded himself into her. Not to mention that he was highly controllable, once her infatuation had been satisfied her mind opened to other possibilities….

She examined the luxuriously appointed room that she shared with him and smiled when she remembered her teary eyed act when her father had thrown her out of the house. She was the reason why he had found out in the first place as she'd inexpertly left a condom wrapper in her pants pocket for Kasumi to find and tell him about. Now she had it all; a credit card with no limit, a wardrobe that would make a queen jealous, a sports car and a huge allowance for personal expenses and all she had to do was sleep with her boyfriend for it all. She would never have to work, all she needed was one more diamond for her ring finger from the gullible fool and she was set for life.

You don't know me from the wind  
you never will, you never did  
I was the little jew  
who wrote the Bible  
I've seen the nations rise and fall  
I've heard their stories, heard them all  
but love's the only engine of survival  
Your servant here, he has been told  
to say it clear, to say it cold:  
It's over, it ain't going  
any further  
And now the wheels of heaven stop  
you feel the devil's RIDING crop  
Get ready for the future:  
it is murder.

Shampoo had been weeping non-stop since the wedding and she blamed Mousse for the loss of her 'airen' He'd comforted her and allowed her to make use of his body as she saw fit. He'd hoped that she would transfer her affection for Ranma to him, until she started talking about going home and making a list of possible husbands; he wasn't on the list.

He now realized that he'd given her his innocence in vain; she would never love him. He was just a barely-tolerated-with-benefits to her and little more then a sex toy. His heart had shattered when this happened. He realized that he couldn't go through seeing her with another man again and sometimes even having to help her trap him. So he'd made love to her as sweetly as he could all night long and the next day had gotten up early to bathe. He'd carefully washed his body, as if he could scrub his soul clean and had shampooed his hair. He stepped into the bath and placed the straight razor on the side of it. Tears fell into the pleasantly warm water; he reached for the instrument of his death and saw his haunted face reflected in the gleaming surface. He placed it to his wrist and whispered "bye my love"

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions  
Won't be nothing  
Nothing you can measure anymore  
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world  
has crossed the threshold  
and it has overturned  
the order of the soul  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant.

Shampoo woke up and stretched, she had a pleasant burning sensation in her loins from being made love to and reached for Mousse. She frowned when she didn't find him there.

She reflected on her emotions as of late. She realized that she hadn't told him how much she'd appreciated him being there for her lately. He always had been there for her and always would be. She didn't love him as he wanted to be, but cared about him a lot. She sniffed his pillow; he always smelled so clean and had a pleasing scent.

She decided that she would add him to the list of potential husbands, she was allowed to have more then one after all and he made a pleasant bedfellow. She blushed at the idea of them making a baby together. She'd been using birth control that her great-grandmother mixed for her until now; perhaps it was time to stop taking it? She giggled when she pictured Mousse fainting in shock at the news of her being pregnant. He would make an excellent father.

She got up and slipped into a bathrobe, she found a rose and a note propped up on the table that read, "I will always love you"

She looked around for him and then decided that he might be taking a bath, she grinned at the idea of joining him. She tiptoed to the onsen and silently opened the door, she shrieked to find him staring sightlessly ahead as he floated in a pool of blood….

There'll be the breaking of the ancient  
western code  
Your private life will suddenly explode  
There'll be phantoms  
There'll be fires on the road  
and a white man dancing  
You'll see a woman  
hanging upside down  
her features covered by her fallen gown  
and all the lousy little poets  
coming round  
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson  
and the white man dancin'.

Ranma looked nervously at Akane, she'd changed from the night that they had failed to spend New Years Eve together. She'd become a woman and a cunning one at that. She was no longer the sweet, innocent girl that she'd been. She'd channeled her violent temper into getting vengeance on all of their oppressors. She learned to use everyone's guilty secrets against them and dug until she had evidence obtained by highly suspect means. She'd become furtive and ruthless until she had all of her enemies and family in the palm of her hand. She'd orchestrated Nabiki's downfall and the way to rid themselves of Kuno forever. She'd forced Dr. Tofu to marry Kasumi. She'd made their fathers leave them alone to get to know each other. Finally she'd turned to Ranma and forced him to marry her right away or she would send the evidence that he'd sexually experimented with Ryoga in his female form to his mother. He didn't know how she'd discovered about that; they had both been drunk at the time and hadn't gone all the way or anything. There was no way that the shy Ryoga would have told her. He sighed, he'd planned on marrying her someday but wasn't ready yet and now it was too late.

Akane walked down the aisle after her reluctant bridesmaids and focused a look of triumphant on Ranma. Her look wouldn't have been out of place on a pirate's face as he examined a beautiful princess that he'd captured that he would first rape and then ransom…..

Give me back the Berlin wall  
Give me Stalin and St Paul  
Give me Christ  
or give me Hiroshima  
Destroy another fetus now  
We don't like children anyhow  
I've seen the future, baby:  
it is murder.

Ryoga examined the beautiful bride; she looked to be the deceptively innocent seventeen-year-old girl she was. However Ryoga knew that appearances could be deceiving. Akane was the new sheriff in town; all she lacked was the white cowboy hat and gold star. Everyone now marched to her tune and she as a tyrant to those who stepped out of line. Ryoga had found this out the hard way when he'd tried to talk her out of this farce of a wedding where no one was happy but her. She'd calmly shown him a photo that Nabiki had taken of his one and only sexual encounter and suggested that he back off. He'd left with a flaming face, feeling sorry for Ranma and everyone else that had fallen into Akane's web.

The girl beside him squeezed his hand in sympathy and he turned to look at Rika, although they had been together for several month after they had stayed in touch after their chance encounter in a bar, the sadness hadn't left her eyes. The man she'd loved had not only rejected her love, but also had mocked her for it. She and Ryoga had turned to each other after Akane had announced her wedding to Ranma, the unspoken understanding between then was that they both loved another and always would. They'd settled for each other out of loneliness and would probably marry to escape it. She was smart, beautiful, sweet and everything that a guy could wish for, but she wasn't Akane.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions  
Won't be nothing  
Nothing you can measure anymore  
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world  
has crossed the threshold  
and it has overturned  
the order of the soul  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant  
When they said REPENT REPENT  
I wonder what they meant.

Ukyou could only stand there with a grin frozen on her face as the triumphant bride and reluctant looking groom were wed. Her heart ached and her eyes under the caked on make up were swollen from crying that she'd lost the only man she'd ever loved. She'd already sold her restaurant and would be leaving in the morning; she didn't want to stick around to see how this sham of a marriage went. She'd already sent Konatsu packing as he was the reason why she'd lost Ranma.

In her mind she wished Akane to the darkest depths of hell as she kissed her new husband and swore that she would never love again. Akane made Nabiki look like a pussycat and now she had the Kuno fortune at her disposal as Nabiki was whoring herself for his wealth. Nerima was no place for Ukyou to be now that Akane Saotome as in charge. It was no place for any of them…..

When they said REPENT REPENT ...


End file.

Ranma, Angst, Romance